2022.03.01 乌克兰的血腥历史从未远去

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EYEWITNESS
Meatball soup and Molotov cocktails: a dispatch from Ukraine
In the western borderlands Ukraine’s bloody past is never far away



Mar 1st 2022
BY WENDELL STEAVENSON


We crossed the border from Poland to Ukraine at dusk, the orange sun falling behind blue woods. Dorohusk was not as jammed as the three other border crossings between the two countries, where there are reports of tailbacks on the Ukrainian side up to 50km long. The refugees, who include African and Indian students and workers, arrive in Poland exhausted and mute, having walked for hours.

There were 18 of us in a small white van. Most of the others were Ukrainians going back to help, to bring out relatives or to fight. They were grim and perfectly determined. We bent over our phones, scrolling the news: the terrible bombardment of Kharkiv; no breakthrough in the peace negotiations. I watched a video showing a column of Belarusian army trucks heading east from Brest along the Ukrainian border. According to Google, that’s only a couple of hours drive from us. In this way we crossed over from peace to war.

We were met on the other side by Vladimir – Vova in the diminutive – a Ukrainian who served in the French Foreign Legion for ten years. He’s one of those people who pop up in wartime, a fixer for international journalists, humanitarian aid, volunteers coming to join the fight. He had a shiny suv, a driver and a Kalashnikov in the front seat. I’ve no idea what his regular job is. And as Karen, a friend and colleague travelling with me, said, “I’m not gonna ask”.






The weight of history These photos, taken in the Donbass at the end of 2021, show Ukrainians, young and old, preparing to fight
Vova hefted our bags into the trunk. He was jolly and slight and sharp. Ludmilla, his wife, and their two small children had gone to Poland on the first day of the war. We could stay at his house in the kids’ room, no problem. But first, if we were hungry, he would take us to his mother-in-law’s home for some supper.

The countryside was flat and open. As night fell, we could see barricades by the side of the road, made of parked trucks and tractors. Checkpoints at the entrance to villages were manned by local units of the Territorial Defence forces. Municipalities have organised volunteers and issued them with guns.

Oksana, Vova’s mother-in-law, who works as a passport inspector at the border, welcomed us warmly. She set our boots on the radiator to warm, made tea and fed us meatball soup with potato and dill.

She joked that her long, lacquered nails would be good for clawing at the Russians

Footage on the tv news showed orange flashes against the smoking grey blocks of Kharkiv. I admired Oksana’s nails, elegantly long and lacquered in plum. She made a joke that they would be good for clawing and scratching at the Russians when they came, but I could see how frightened she was. Several bags of food and blankets were ready by the door, in case she had to flee.

“Who could imagine this? In 2022?” She shook her head. Her brother, she said, had brought his wife and children from Kyiv and then gone back to fight. Territorial Defence forces were making Molotov cocktails – except Ukrainians in these parts are avoiding the reference to Stalin’s foreign minister and have changed the name to Bandera smoothies, after Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian nationalist leader who became an ally of the Nazis.






Then Oksana began to talk about her family. Her grandfather’s sister had been arrested in 1933, aged 15, for giving bread to children during the Great Famine and sent to a gulag in Kazakhstan for ten years. Her grandfather had fled to Moldova when he was denounced during collectivisation in the late 1920s and early 1930s, then returned after two years to find his fruit orchards had been ploughed up. She was telling us these things, said Oksana, because she wanted us to know that it was the communists who had brought war and suffering to this place. Now Putin wanted to turn back the clock and impose it all over again.

History is treading heavily over this land again. Vova toggled and swiped and sent messages and took calls. The voices of the news anchors on the television were strained and urgent. I noticed one picking nervously at the cuticle of his thumbnail.

Ukrainians have changed the name of Molotov cocktails to Bandera smoothies

Oksana had begun an email to a friend, a teacher in the Russian city of Novosibirsk, with the greeting “dobry den” (“good day”). She added that she could hardly bring herself to write that platitude. She showed me her friend’s reply: “Oksana, I sympathise with you with all my heart. And all the Russians support you…People write from all over the country. If only they could resist and hold on to something. Nobody wants to go to war.” “It’s not the fault of the Russian citizens,” said Vova, looking up from his phone, “it’s the fault of Putin.”

Ludmilla, Vova’s wife, called from Poland. The little ones missed their father. Yes, the Poles were so kind and helpful: “They even brought toys for the children, they bought clothes for the children. But it’s hard you know, my daughter said to me: ‘I forgot my toy, can we go home and get it?’” Ludmilla had also written to friends in Russia who then repeated the official line to her: we are there to help the Ukrainians, the Russian armed forces are not targeting civilians. “I was pissed off. I started sending them pictures and videos of the fighting. They told me they were just photoshopped. They don’t know what’s happening. Their television doesn’t show them.”

We ate our soup very gratefully. There’s too much history here.■

Wendell Steavenson has reported on post-Soviet Georgia, the Iraq war and the Egyptian revolution. She is sending regular dispatches for 1843 magazine from Ukraine

PHOTOGRAPHS: GUILLAUME HERBAUT / AGENCE VU / CAMERA PRESS



目击者
肉丸汤和莫洛托夫鸡尾酒：来自乌克兰的消息
在西部边境地区，乌克兰的血腥历史从未远去



2022年3月1日
作者：温德尔-斯坦文森


我们在黄昏时分穿越了从波兰到乌克兰的边境，橙色的太阳落在蓝色的树林后面。多罗胡斯克没有像两国之间的其他三个边境口岸那样拥堵，据报道，乌克兰一侧的尾巴长达50公里。难民中包括非洲和印度的学生和工人，他们到达波兰时已经筋疲力尽，哑口无言，走了好几个小时。

我们有18人坐在一辆白色小货车里。其他大多数人是乌克兰人，他们要回去帮忙，把亲戚带出来，或者去战斗。他们面无表情，决心十足。我们弯着腰拿着手机，滚动播放新闻：哈尔科夫遭到可怕的轰炸；和平谈判没有取得突破。我看了一段视频，显示一列白俄罗斯军队的卡车从布列斯特沿乌克兰边境向东行驶。根据谷歌的数据，那离我们只有几个小时的车程。就这样，我们从和平跨越到了战争。

在另一边迎接我们的是弗拉基米尔--小写的沃瓦--一个在法国外籍军团服务了十年的乌克兰人。他是那些在战时突然出现的人之一，是国际记者、人道主义援助、前来参加战斗的志愿者的固定人员。他有一辆闪亮的suv，一个司机，前座上有一把卡拉什尼科夫。我不知道他的常规工作是什么。正如与我同行的朋友和同事凯伦所说，"我不会问"。









历史的重量 这些照片是2021年底在顿巴斯拍摄的，显示乌克兰人，无论老少，都在准备战斗。
沃瓦把我们的行李搬进后备箱。他性格开朗，身材瘦小，思维敏捷。卢德米拉、他的妻子和他们的两个小孩在战争的第一天就去了波兰。我们可以住在他家的孩子们的房间里，没有问题。但首先，如果我们饿了，他会带我们去他岳母家吃点晚饭。

农村是平坦而开阔的。夜幕降临时，我们可以看到路边的路障，由停放的卡车和拖拉机组成。村庄入口处的检查站由当地的国土防卫部队单位负责把守。市政府组织了志愿者，并为他们发放了枪支。

沃瓦的婆婆奥克萨娜在边境担任护照检查员，她热情地欢迎我们。她把我们的靴子放在暖气片上取暖，泡了茶，给我们喂了土豆和莳萝肉丸汤。

她开玩笑说，她那长长的、涂了漆的指甲很适合用来抓捕俄罗斯人。

电视新闻中的镜头显示，在哈尔科夫冒烟的灰色街区中，橙色的闪光。我很欣赏奥克萨娜的指甲，优雅的长指甲，涂着梅花色的漆。她开玩笑说，俄国人来的时候，这些指甲可以用来抓挠，但我可以看出她有多害怕。门边准备了几袋食物和毛毯，以防她不得不逃离。

"谁能想象这个？在2022年？" 她摇了摇头。她说，她的哥哥从基辅带来了他的妻子和孩子，然后又回去打仗了。国土防卫部队正在制作莫洛托夫鸡尾酒--只是这些地方的乌克兰人避免提及斯大林的外交部长，并将名称改为班德拉冰沙，以斯捷潘-班德拉为名，他是一位有争议的乌克兰民族主义领导人，成为纳粹的盟友。











然后奥克萨娜开始谈论她的家庭。她祖父的妹妹在1933年被逮捕，当时她15岁，因为在大饥荒期间给孩子们送面包，被送到哈萨克斯坦的古拉格集中营待了十年。她的祖父在20世纪20年代末和30年代初集体化期间被告发时逃到了摩尔多瓦，两年后回来时发现他的果园被犁掉了。奥克萨娜说，她告诉我们这些事情，是因为她想让我们知道，是共产党人给这个地方带来了战争和痛苦。现在，普京想让时间倒流，把这一切重新强加于人。

历史正再次重重地踩在这片土地上。沃瓦拨动和滑动，发送信息和接听电话。电视上的新闻主播的声音紧张而急切。我注意到一个人紧张地抠着他的拇指指甲的角质层。

乌克兰人将莫洛托夫鸡尾酒的名字改为班德拉冰沙。

奥克萨娜在给俄罗斯城市新西伯利亚的一位教师朋友的电子邮件中，以 "dobry den"（"好日子"）的问候语开始。她补充说，她很难让自己写出这种陈词滥调。她给我看了她朋友的回复。"奥克萨娜，我全心全意地同情你。所有的俄罗斯人都支持你......全国各地的人都在写信。如果他们能够抵抗并坚持一些东西就好了。没有人愿意去打仗。" "这不是俄罗斯公民的错，"沃瓦说，从他的手机上抬起头来，"这是普京的错。"

沃瓦的妻子柳德米拉从波兰打来电话。小家伙们想念他们的父亲。是的，波兰人是如此善良和乐于助人。"他们甚至给孩子们带来了玩具，他们给孩子们买了衣服。但这很难，你知道，我的女儿对我说：'我忘了我的玩具，我们可以回家去拿吗？柳德米拉也曾写信给俄罗斯的朋友，他们随后向她重复了官方的说法：我们在那里是为了帮助乌克兰人，俄罗斯武装部队不是针对平民的。"我被激怒了。我开始给他们发送战斗的照片和视频。他们告诉我，这些照片都是经过PS的。他们不知道发生了什么。他们的电视不显示这些内容。"

我们非常感激地吃着汤。这里有太多的历史了。■。

温德尔-斯特文森曾报道过后苏联时期的格鲁吉亚、伊拉克战争和埃及革命。她在乌克兰为《1843》杂志定期发稿。

照片：Guillaume Herbaut / agence vu / camera press